Candlelight glimmered against the finely polished surface of a glass table, the light striking against the opaque surface of a single black mug filled with ice cold Coca Cola. Smooth jazz music played softly in the background, soothing the ears of the man laying motionless on a single biobed protruding out of the grey bulkhead surrounding the room with its inescapable air of sickness and wounds. The patient, still wearing the uniform of a Starfleet Captain, did not show any sign of awareness of his surroundings, even as a lithe women moved gracefully and swiftly into the private ward in which he lay for his prolonged slumber. Her hair fanned about her smooth head like a jet black halo as she swept to the side of this comatose Captain. The cold, forboding look on her face softened as she regarded the face of the man below. Her thin, sharply manicured fingers let a golden envelope flutter gently onto the folds of the blankets warming the man beneath. It settled silently as her lips touched his, her senses exploding with the feelings that lay suppressed within her beating heart. She savoured the moment like it was her last, finally pulling away to whisper in a lilting, almost childlike voice into the Captain's ear.

"And now i lay thee down to sleep. The Lord I pray his soul may keep."

He did not wake for several days. But when his eyes finally fluttered open, painfully readjusting to the continuance of the war against miniscule dust particles floating in the air around them, he found the envelope. Clumsily he tore it open, gently unfolding the yellowed peice of old Earth paper contained within. On it were scant words, short and without point to all but the reader.

"Spared the light. Spared the call."

8 years to the day when that Captain's eyes fluttered open once more an Admiral stared at those words, written so meticulously in dark ink on old paper. The same eyes that had read that note 8 years ago now looked for new meaning in them, staring far beyond the ink and paper as his mind turned over those far gone events in his past. He sighed and looked out of the glass that gifted him with a view of the cosmos, looking to the peacefully twinkling stars for an answer he could not gain on his own. With a twinge of remorse in his heart he lay the paper upon his cluttered Mahoganny desk and turned his attention back to the toneless though colourful screen of his computer terminal. Upon that screen was a message addressed to Admiral M Wood of the Federation Starship Redemption. With a swift jab of his index finger that Admiral opened the message and began to pore through it's contents, a mundane task he was forced to repeat several times a day and the price he paid in exchange for being allowed to continue leading from the Bridge of a starship - his Starship. The contents were simple enough reading, simply listing through the reports from the ongoing efforts to bring the Miradorn's small but powerful fleet into the great Alliance being formed against the Andromedan Empire. Wood finished reading and chuckled inwardly to himself, noting how pompous Admiral Ross had sounded in his report from the Miradorn homeworld. Scant entertainment for the man who was leading the Alliance's fleet on the front lines.

A gentle bleeping emanated from the door to Wood's Ready Room, heralding the entrance of Commander Beast. The painfully thin grey skinned alien looked at Wood with his elliptical black eyes as he entered and took a seat in the sofa that faced Wood's desk. A PADD protruded from his three fingered left hand, "That time of the day again Sir." He stated comfortably, leaning forward slightly to deliver the data storage device to the Admiral.

Wood made a face, creasing his features up so that his green eyes seemed to glow in the light, "Need I even read it Number One?"

Beast inclined his head, "All Departments report thier people are working at full capacity sir. The new arrivals have integrated well with thier new peers and the Lateral Sensor Array will be offline for two hours starting at 1100 hours."

Wood shook his head, "I thought Lieutenant Hunt had fixed that glitch in that array."

Beast did not make any bodily signs of frustration, though Wood knew this was probably frustrating him, "So did I sir."

Wood placed the PADD gently next door to the old note, "And so begins a refreshingly boring day on board my ship. Thank you Commander."

Beast, dismissed, stood and walked out of the tan doors to the blue lights of the Bridge. Wood sat back in his chair and pulled his computer a little closer, "Computer. Play audio track, Solitude by Evanesence."

Today was going to be a quiet day, and Admiral Wood was looking forward to enjoying every second of it.